I genuinely can't think of a reason why they felt the need to specify the Lolita-inspired apparel thing that isn't just them grossly misrepresenting the fashion or misunderstanding the word's usage to refer to the book. If they're trying to specify the fashion, what about it is inappropriate for children? If they're trying to refer to the book, why did they phrase it in such a strange way, and what about something like that wouldn't be covered by existing rules against adult themes? Are they that afraid of explicitly using the word "sexual" on their PG13 website? The explicit namedropping of it is weird and the insistence that they need to be contacted directly about it via email if people have complaints is even weirder.
I’m actually wondering if they just sorta got it mixed up with the whole fetishization of ‘schoolgirl uniforms’. I don’t think they actually are banning frilly dresses and bows and things - but more so trying to avoid anything too questionable/similar to the former. Possibly they just didn’t realize Lolita fashion is a whole separate thing, and just misused the word thinking it was in reference to that? Aeq said they’re going to put out more clarification, so hopefully that clears it up, but I agree they should probably drop any reference to Lolita fashion at all.
the amount of people accusing staff of not knowing definitions of easily-googleable and culturally-understood words is ridiculous. plenty of people know of the "Lolita-style" Japanese fashion subculture, and realize that this clothing style is "streetwear" (public-appropriate), not sexual in nature. HOWEVER, insinuating that the word "Lolita" could ever be divorced from connotations relating it to the Nabokov book is fully obtuse.
"the insistence that they need to be contacted directly about it via email if people have complaints is even weirder." - i hate how much i've been seeing this argument too, because it has NEVER been within the rules to debate site guidelines on the forums. that has ALWAYS been an issue that needs to go through "Contact Us."
"HOWEVER, insinuating that the word "Lolita" could ever be divorced from connotations relating it to the Nabokov book is fully obtuse."
And insinuating that anyone on the internet is going to read the word Lolita when it comes to fashion and not just think of the fashion is stupid. Because as I said: in the context of the book, what sexualised or otherwise suggestive fashion are they talking about? What kind of outfit would make someone look at it and go "ah, this is Nabokov's Lolita?" I would love to know.
But they're the ones that changed the wording because they clearly realised what they originally wrote was poorly thought out and liable to be wildly misinterpreted, so you didn't need to try defending them on it!
You're right on the site guidelines, but I think that for a group of people who clearly seem to think there's no point in running anything by a test/sample group of users first in a way that's led to blunder after blunder, I do think they set themselves up for failure.
(ayrt) right, the fashion style naturally does come to mind for many people. and i'm not trying to fight you on that. but even if people know the fashion style itself has lead to a degree of removal from the original context of the name, it is still true that the name was literally sourced from the book, and "the Internet is for corn"... so it's up to staff to be vigilant in regards to what user-generated content they will or will not allow to become items on their own site that they have a duty of care to curate as appropriate for children as young as 13. and to me the intent was obvious, that it was alluding to the sexualization of minors, and also alluding to certain facets of the "~actual definition Lolita-style fashion" that would, in the context of hatchling designs and the ABDL-style eroticism they're trying to avoid, be inappropriate for on-site skin&accent designs.
i agree with others saying that the most largely recognized fashion imagery "directly from" Nabokov's Lolita would probably just be the heart-shaped sunglasses as popularized in film depiction & then on book covers. [and culturally at large, the "point" of the book is missed]. but work with me here. Japanese Lolita fashion itself may not be sexual in nature, but unfortunately-common(especially online) eroticized "adult-baby fashion" depictions often include elements of dress also popularized by, parallel to, and/or borrowed from (in part) the literal Japanese Lolita fashion subculture.
to quote the initial phrasing of the rules: "Designs should not adultify the hatchling. This includes but is not limited to thigh-high stockings, Lolita-inspired apparel, and content that otherwise communicates visually or through the title/name that the hatchling is an adult in a child's body, etc. ... Designs and their titles/names should be able to pass muster out of context."
so, they gave an example of attire first. thigh-high stockings. reasonable, makes sense, known to be related to eroticism even when, yes, No article of clothing is inherently sexual. then Lolita is namedropped. this is not banning dresses and/or Japanese Lolita fashion in general. following "thigh-high stockings," one can conclude that it's an allusion to Elements of this style, not All Permutations Of this style. sure, it may not be super eloquent, but to me, listing out all the impermissible articles one-by-one and naming why they are impermissible defeats the point of trying to omit that content in the first place... like me on neopets wondering why i can't write the word cucumber, and learning a new word through that :P
so, right, content visually or lexically related to sexualizing minors is impermissible. they can't just allow "accent: lolita pretty for coatl hatchlings" or similarly-named items. so they tried to suggest an idea of what might be disallowed visually, while also specifying a naming convention that would not be allowed, NOT because Japanese Lolita fashion is inherently inappropriate or sexualized, but because they have to be extra vigilant about content that could be construed as sexual in nature, and putting the name "lolita" onto a baby dragon is obviously not without HEAVY connection to the idea of the character Dolores, a minor who was assigned the nickname "Lolita" by the adult male character who was sexualizing her. [YIKES im sorry mods]
all these statements can be true at the same time: -"fashion-subculture Japanese Lolita-style outfits are streetwear celebrating self-expression." -"the Lolita name was sourced from THE book about babycrimes." -"the Lolita name is therefore connected to both a very particular crime and a very particular fashion subtype." -"ABDL-adjacent content intended for mature audiences does have visual commonalities with the Japanese Lolita style." -"FR staff has, within the lifetime of the website, had to moderate out user-generated content that sexualizes minors." -"most people will not intentionally submit inappropriate content." -"content generated without ill intent can still be perceived as indecent when it has commonalities with popularly-eroticized content, even when it was created by an artist unfamiliar with any erotic context." -"an outfit is just an outfit." -"taboo fetishes do not indicate criminal proclivity." -"people DO try to sneak inappropriate/sexualized content through the filters under the guise of plausible deniability." -"creating/buying/selling UMAs with snuck-in erotic dogwhistles can facilitate the creation of hidden-in-plain-sight shadow communities of people who are summoned by those dogwhistles, and connect the unaware to those with ill intent." -"virtual pet websites are popular locations for predators to seek out minors. (just because we don't like it doesn't make it not true.)" -"it is best for people running a company to err on the side of caution when it comes to moderating content that could be construed as harmful to minors, especially in the current climate of internet sanitization and fearmongering What About The Kids (TM) rhetoric & legislation."
sure, i agree that the rewording of the rules was clearly needed based on community response. i'm not saying that the first draft was the best possible wording. but i do think that staff's wording of the rules would have needed a re-work for clarification no matter what the initial wording was (i said this somewhere else too). and what made me frustrated about the community response was the repeated insistence that "Lolita" as a word has been Completely divorced from its original context, which simply cannot be true in a 100% black-and-white either/or way.
(i'm so sorry mods, i've been trying to stay within the limits of acceptability when it comes to discussing this very dicey convo. i know we are all growing fatigued of the topic.)
I don't give a fuck about this conversation or the hatchling accent rules because I don't own a single EY dragon nor do I ever intend to, but you just threw me straight back over a decade to baby's first LJ wank community between the raw wordcount and the microscopic topic dissection. Absolutely incredible. It is 2009 and I am pretending I am 18 on the internet again.
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Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-17 04:09 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-17 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-18 12:20 am (UTC)(link)plenty of people know of the "Lolita-style" Japanese fashion subculture, and realize that this clothing style is "streetwear" (public-appropriate), not sexual in nature. HOWEVER, insinuating that the word "Lolita" could ever be divorced from connotations relating it to the Nabokov book is fully obtuse.
"the insistence that they need to be contacted directly about it via email if people have complaints is even weirder." - i hate how much i've been seeing this argument too, because it has NEVER been within the rules to debate site guidelines on the forums. that has ALWAYS been an issue that needs to go through "Contact Us."
Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-18 07:06 am (UTC)(link)And insinuating that anyone on the internet is going to read the word Lolita when it comes to fashion and not just think of the fashion is stupid. Because as I said: in the context of the book, what sexualised or otherwise suggestive fashion are they talking about? What kind of outfit would make someone look at it and go "ah, this is Nabokov's Lolita?" I would love to know.
But they're the ones that changed the wording because they clearly realised what they originally wrote was poorly thought out and liable to be wildly misinterpreted, so you didn't need to try defending them on it!
You're right on the site guidelines, but I think that for a group of people who clearly seem to think there's no point in running anything by a test/sample group of users first in a way that's led to blunder after blunder, I do think they set themselves up for failure.
Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-18 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)i agree with others saying that the most largely recognized fashion imagery "directly from" Nabokov's Lolita would probably just be the heart-shaped sunglasses as popularized in film depiction & then on book covers. [and culturally at large, the "point" of the book is missed]. but work with me here. Japanese Lolita fashion itself may not be sexual in nature, but unfortunately-common(especially online) eroticized "adult-baby fashion" depictions often include elements of dress also popularized by, parallel to, and/or borrowed from (in part) the literal Japanese Lolita fashion subculture.
to quote the initial phrasing of the rules:
"Designs should not adultify the hatchling.
This includes but is not limited to thigh-high stockings, Lolita-inspired apparel, and content that otherwise communicates visually or through the title/name that the hatchling is an adult in a child's body, etc.
...
Designs and their titles/names should be able to pass muster out of context."
so, they gave an example of attire first. thigh-high stockings. reasonable, makes sense, known to be related to eroticism even when, yes, No article of clothing is inherently sexual. then Lolita is namedropped. this is not banning dresses and/or Japanese Lolita fashion in general. following "thigh-high stockings," one can conclude that it's an allusion to Elements of this style, not All Permutations Of this style. sure, it may not be super eloquent, but to me, listing out all the impermissible articles one-by-one and naming why they are impermissible defeats the point of trying to omit that content in the first place... like me on neopets wondering why i can't write the word cucumber, and learning a new word through that :P
so, right, content visually or lexically related to sexualizing minors is impermissible. they can't just allow "accent: lolita pretty for coatl hatchlings" or similarly-named items. so they tried to suggest an idea of what might be disallowed visually, while also specifying a naming convention that would not be allowed, NOT because Japanese Lolita fashion is inherently inappropriate or sexualized, but because they have to be extra vigilant about content that could be construed as sexual in nature, and putting the name "lolita" onto a baby dragon is obviously not without HEAVY connection to the idea of the character Dolores, a minor who was assigned the nickname "Lolita" by the adult male character who was sexualizing her. [YIKES im sorry mods]
all these statements can be true at the same time:
-"fashion-subculture Japanese Lolita-style outfits are streetwear celebrating self-expression."
-"the Lolita name was sourced from THE book about babycrimes."
-"the Lolita name is therefore connected to both a very particular crime and a very particular fashion subtype."
-"ABDL-adjacent content intended for mature audiences does have visual commonalities with the Japanese Lolita style."
-"FR staff has, within the lifetime of the website, had to moderate out user-generated content that sexualizes minors."
-"most people will not intentionally submit inappropriate content."
-"content generated without ill intent can still be perceived as indecent when it has commonalities with popularly-eroticized content, even when it was created by an artist unfamiliar with any erotic context."
-"an outfit is just an outfit."
-"taboo fetishes do not indicate criminal proclivity."
-"people DO try to sneak inappropriate/sexualized content through the filters under the guise of plausible deniability."
-"creating/buying/selling UMAs with snuck-in erotic dogwhistles can facilitate the creation of hidden-in-plain-sight shadow communities of people who are summoned by those dogwhistles, and connect the unaware to those with ill intent."
-"virtual pet websites are popular locations for predators to seek out minors. (just because we don't like it doesn't make it not true.)"
-"it is best for people running a company to err on the side of caution when it comes to moderating content that could be construed as harmful to minors, especially in the current climate of internet sanitization and fearmongering What About The Kids (TM) rhetoric & legislation."
sure, i agree that the rewording of the rules was clearly needed based on community response. i'm not saying that the first draft was the best possible wording. but i do think that staff's wording of the rules would have needed a re-work for clarification no matter what the initial wording was (i said this somewhere else too). and what made me frustrated about the community response was the repeated insistence that "Lolita" as a word has been Completely divorced from its original context, which simply cannot be true in a 100% black-and-white either/or way.
(i'm so sorry mods, i've been trying to stay within the limits of acceptability when it comes to discussing this very dicey convo. i know we are all growing fatigued of the topic.)
Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-18 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-18 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)Nonny, I think I love you.
I don't give a fuck about this conversation or the hatchling accent rules because I don't own a single EY dragon nor do I ever intend to, but you just threw me straight back over a decade to baby's first LJ wank community between the raw wordcount and the microscopic topic dissection. Absolutely incredible. It is 2009 and I am pretending I am 18 on the internet again.
Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-18 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)Re: hatchling skins
Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-23 02:31 am (UTC)(link)Re: hatchling skins
(Anonymous) 2024-05-19 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)